‘The Best American Sports Writing 2011′

The 2011 edition of ‘The Best American Sports Writing’ is out. Each year Bill and series editor Glenn Stout discuss some of the most intriguing stories from the collection. This year they’re also joined by Chris Jones, whose piece about a free diver is titled ‘Breathless’. It originally appeared in ESPN The Magazine.

Bill’s thoughts on ‘Best American Sports Writing 2011′:

Nobody can read all the sports-related stuff worth reading in a given year…except Glenn Stout.

It’s been that way since 1991, when Glenn took on the job of series editor for Houghton Mifflin’s The Best American Sports Writing. Since then, the annual collection has provided all of us with a second chance to read not only the work of some of the most celebrated sportswriters, but of good writers who’ve only paused briefly in the toy department. These collections contain the great stuff from Sports Illustrated and lots of the other usual suspects, but Glenn also finds worthy material in magazines where sports stories seldom appear and on websites many of us have never heard of.

In the conversation I had with Glenn for the December 24th program, I mentioned some of the stories from the current edition of The Best American Sports Writing, which I particularly enjoyed. I’ll not list those stories again, but I will contend that this year, as in each year since 1991, every reader of this collection will find lots of delights.

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